After "bouncing around" in a mosh pit in Cincinnati much of Friday night, Joseph Goetz made it home to Chattanooga about 4:45 Saturday morning. Four hours later he was cooling down after winning the John Bruner Memorial Missionary Ridge Road Race.
The 26-year-old Goetz said he squeezed in about an hour of sleep on the way back from the Tool concert, while a friend drove.
"Now I can sleep all day," he said.
In his first time in the 36th annual race from the Bragg Reservation, Goetz covered the hilly 4.7 miles in 25 minutes, 32 seconds. Another first-timer, recent University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate Sabrina Lefort, was the women's winner and 19th overall in 31:02.
Jan Gautier, at 44 twice Lefort's age, was the second female finisher and masters winner in 32:02 after winning eight of the previous 10 ridge runs. Her husband was Lefort's UTC coach and soon will be the Canadian's boss; the Timmins, Ontario, resident will assist Bill Gautier this school year.
"If I can run as fast as Jan does -- or look as young as she does -- when I'm her age, I'll be very happy," Lefort said. "If I didn't know her and had to guess, I'd say she's about 28."
Lefort said the course was "not too bad going out, but it is coming back. That last mile and a half is tough."
That largely uphill final part is about the distance more than she usually ran in cross country season.
"I tried to picture it as a training run, when we would do five to seven miles at a time," she said.
Goetz has won several area races, but Missionary Ridge often came at a bad time in his schedule, "and the heat and humidity and hills aren't good for me, either," he said.
This time he thought it would be helpful preparation for the Hood to Coast Relay Race he's running with some Knoxville friends later this month from Mount Hood to Seaside on the Pacific coast.
"It crossed my mind not to run today after getting home so late," he said, "but I hadn't raced in a while and I needed it."
Nick Selbow, 30, was second overall in 25:57, also in his first ridge race. Selbow, who said he teaches Chinese at Soddy-Daisy, moved to Chattanooga from Wisconsin about four years ago. His area events have included trail races and last Thanksgiving's Turkey Trot.
"I was shooting for 25-even, but it's hilly, very hilly," he said of the ridge route. "(Goetz) smoked me after mile two."
Jeff Edmonds of Nashville was third in 26:26, followed by masters winner Tim Ensign, 46, of Chattanooga in 26:30. Signal Mountain's Hugh Enicks, 49, was fifth in 27:30.
Veteran runner Jim Selman got wobbly near the end and fell just before the finish line, cutting his lip. After a few minutes, he crawled a few feet and put his hand over the line. Then he was taken to the hospital and released after being treated for dehydration.
Dalton's Greg Bruner, whose son John collapsed in the 2007 race and died soon afterward from an abnormal coronary artery condition, gave the race invocation for the second year in a row. John's siblings, Megan and Andrew, ran the race and finished second and third in their age groups.
Lee Meadows, 70, got the Arnold Godwin Award for oldest participant.
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